Tug stared brutally into the woman's face. Audie was displaying a side to her character he had never witnessed before. She was alone with him—the Indian didn't count in his reckoning—she had no hesitation in dictating to him, even, as he chose to regard it, insulting him. His astonishment gave him pause, and he pulled himself together. Then he found himself obeying her in a way he had never thought of doing.
Suddenly he thrust his hand into the bosom of his clothing and withdrew it swiftly. His whole action was the impulsive result of a rush of passionate feeling. Nor did it require his words to tell of the condition of mind he was laboring under.
"Read that," he cried furiously, "if you are as ignorant of his doings as you make out. Read it, and—and be damned."
He flung out his arm across the fire, his hand grasping the biscuit paper on which the fateful message was written. Quite undisturbed by his brutality Audie took the paper and unfolded it.
"It was left fastened on the front of my tent while I was away fetching wood," Tug went on bitterly. "I came back to find my dogs gone, my sled, half my stores, Charlie dead, he had been dying for a week, and—and that paper. Read it—curse it, read for yourself."
The Indian never once lifted his eyes from the fire, the warmth of which was an endless source of comfort to him. He was thinking, thinking of many things in the deep, silent way of his race.
Tug waited impatiently while the woman devoured the contents of the message. She read it once—twice—even a third time through; and while she read, though her expression remained the same, all her emotions were stirred to fever heat. She was thinking swiftly, eagerly, her brain quickened to a pitch it had never realized before. Her love for Leo was urging her the more fully to grasp the position in which his latest act had placed him.
This outrage against the man, Tug, in no way lessened her concern for her lover, for his welfare. The primitive woman was always uppermost in her. She cared not a jot that Tug had been despoiled. Leo was well, Leo was alive and safe. But was he safe—now?
A sudden alarm along fresh lines startled her. The meaning of what she read took a fresh complexion. Leo had robbed—robbed this man. What must follow if it were known?
For a moment this alarm shuddered through her body. Then she steadied herself. Her mind suddenly became very clear and decided. She suddenly saw her course clear before her, and her voice broke the tense silence round the crackling fire. She read the message for the fourth time. Read it aloud slowly.